LEX Features

LEX - The LDAP Explorer is a GUI based administration tool running on
windows platforms, which is able to browse and manage LDAP directory
systems. For the LEX user, the look and feel while working with the directory
structure is very similar to the windows file explorer. LEX isn't just another LDAP browser, in fact it's an full featured LDAP client for directory services adminstration.

LDAP browsing and object display

Display of the container objects in a hierarchical tree view with the
according possibilities to navigate. Once a container structure is copied
into a local cache, the following LEX program launches are extremely fast.

Object list display with any LDAP object attribute as a list column
value.

The complete attribute list of an object can be shown integrated in
the main window (expandable as an horizontal or vertical window pane)
or in an separate window.

LEX can access several LDAP directories concurrently.

All program windows which shows single objects or object lists (for
example the results of search operations), are not modal.

The display of all Distinguished Names in the program can be switched
from the official
LDAP notation to Novell dotted notation.

Connection Profiles: Logon configurations and their
credentials can be easily stored in profiles.
The profiles are stored in the filesystem with Rijndael encryption so
that they are protected against disclosure.

Server Detection: In Active Directory or Novell eDirectory
environments, LEX can search automatically for available LDAP servers.
If the LEX workstation is member of an Active Directory domains, all
domain controllers in the entire forest will be detected, with global
catalog configuration and site membership.

Naming Contexts Fetch: The naming contexts which are
published by the LDAP server can be automatically detected, the user
doesn't have to enter LDAP base pathnames manually.

Schema Evaluation

LEX performs an evaluation of the LDAP schema for the mentioned server
types. This happens whenever the tool connects to an LDAP server. Therefore
LEX can display LDAP attributes which are not visible in simple LDAP requests
(operational attributes). Object attributes which have a more complex syntax
can be displayed and edited in customized dialogs (for example date and
time values or access control lists).

Edit Functions

LEX can edit objects and attributes - with special editors which are customized
for the regarding data type and attribute syntax. If you want to generally
avoid unintentional write access to the directory, you can configure LEX
to operate in a ReadOnly mode.

The following data types are editable with customized dialogs:

Boolean

Directory String / Unicode / IA5 / Printable

Integer (decimal, hexadecimal, binary - even as bit field)

Octet-String / Binary

Bitmaps

Distinguished Name (with comfortable resolution for short names into
complete Distinguished Names)

Subtree Rename and Move: LEX can move and rename whole
directory subtrees, even if the regarding directory service does not support
such operations on non-leaf objects. This is done by cloning the underlying
container structure and move all the regarding leaf objects into the cloned
subtree.

Multi-Object Edit: LEX enables the user to choose several
different objects from the current object list and edit their attributes
simultaneously. Attributes can be built up based on other existing attributes
here. An example: You could set the display name of many users to the new
value "surname, given name" in one single step. Or you can set
the email address of al recipients to "givenName.surname@example.com" in
one single step. You can also set or remove single bits on numeric attributes for multiple objects.

Attribute Copy and Paste: With LEX, you can set attributes
of an object according to the values of another object - very easy with
the copy and paste functions which are implemented for objects and their
attributes. Group memberships could be copied this way - the user can choose
whether such multi valued attributes shall be merged into the existing value
list or if the existing list shall be replaced by the copied values. from
the clipboard.

Objectclass extension: You can easily add new object classes
to existing objects.

Edit Dialogs: All dialogs in which object attributes
are displayed and edited are non-modal.

Export / Import

Export formats: LDIF, CSV, XML, XLS

Import formats: LDIF

Directory Search For Objects

LEX comes with different search operations:

Direct search in the text of the currently displayed object list or
attribute list

Simple LDAP search for object names and important attributes

Complex search with LDAP search filters

Paged Results searches for large environments

LDAP Filter Factory

The Filter Factory enables the LEX user to built even complex LDAP with
nested boolean structures with a comfortable graphical user interface. Filter
can be saved and loaded easily.

Specific editors help building sinlge filter elements even for complex datatypes (like date and time values) or for bit fields/flags (for example filters which search for single bits in userAccountControl attributes in AD environments).

Attributes can be used for filter building with their current values directly
from the object view with context menu options.

LEX comes with predefined important LDAP filters.

Filters which contain date and time values can be stored in a time-relative manner ("All users which didn't log on for the last six months").

All dialogs in which LDAP filters are displayed and edited are non-modal.

TreeMap Factory

LEX 1.5.000 comes with a new visualization technique called cushion treemaps to provide you with a single grafic picture of the entire contents of your directory hierarchy or any sub container in your directory tree. When you are maintain large LDAP directory environments, this visualization lets you quickly identify the containers or organizational units with the most objects in it. Additionally, you can easily see what kind of objects are stored in which containers. This visualization technique called cushion treemaps is used in some popular admin tools for large file systems, like KDIRSTAT, SEQUOIAVIEW or WINDIRSTAT.

Observation Factory

The Observation Factory can observe in "real time" an object on multiple LDAP servers simultaneously . This is e.g. very useful if you want to have a closer look at the process of a directory replication. You can monitor an object or important attributes of an object in the Observation Factory so that you can see exactly when and where the appropriate changes were made to the directory data.

Pipe Factory

The Pipe Factory enables you to add your own scripts or applications as a kind of plug in into LEX. With a pipe specification, the pipe script/program can be launched from the context menu of any object. LEX passes the Distinguished Name (the LDAP path) of the regarding object as a parameter to the pipe.

Active Directory Tombstone Reanimation / AD Recycle Bin Access

Active Directory objects which are placed in the hidden Deleted Objects container can be easily browsed and salvaged with the LEX LDAP browser. You can reanimate AD object tombstones in 'old' Windows 2003 / Windows 2008 environments, or you can do a complete object restore with the AD Recycle Bin feature of Windows 2008 R2 (and newer DCs).

Object Comparison

LEX offers the possibility to compare any pair of directory object with
each other. In the comparison display, all attribute values are displayed
in a dual difference list, even multi valued attributes (for example group
memberships) are compared and displayed accordingly value by value.